


Any Road

by sheron



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Presumed Dead, Romance, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-08 04:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15235422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: Three months after defeating Thanos, Steve Rogers wakes up in the middle of a cornfield, with no memory of how he got there. No memories of anything, not even his own name. The only valuable on him is a flip-phone with a single contact number.Tony Stark will do anything to help him remember, but he won't even admit they are friends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jelliebean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelliebean/gifts).



> Thank you to janonny and msermesth for all your help, and to the mods for running this wonderful exchange. The title is from "Any Road" by George Harrison. I hope you enjoy the story!

 

He came to in a fetal position, lying in a cornfield, tall yellowing stalks as far as the eye could see. Simply by breathing in the earthy smell that permeated the air, the start of decaying plants, he knew immediately that the season was fall. For some reason, this knowledge sent a burst of adrenaline through his body and he got to his feet, looking about, trying to get his bearings.

He didn't know where he was, but no one else was around to ask. He was alone.

The sun was kissing the edges of the horizon, thin wisps of clouds streaking through the otherwise peaceful sky, and just starting to turn orange before the sunset. He thought he could see the edge of the cornfield in the distance, and what looked like a dirt road.

Taking stock of himself, he glanced down at his dark blue uniform. He took note of how it wrapped his entire body in a dark material that looked at a glance related to Kevlar. A large black star stood out in the center of his chest. The longer he stared at it, the more a sense of discomfort snuck up on him, seemingly out of nowhere. The material around the star was ripped in places ― it was clearly a well-worn suit that had seen a little of excitement.

Next, he turned his hands this way and that, staring at the brown leather fingerless gloves. It occurred to him that he didn't know why he wore this uniform, what purpose it served. He didn't know anything about himself, not even his own name. Hairs seemed to rise up on his neck in realization, goose-bumps breaking out on his body even though the temperature was just edging towards cool. Then, just as suddenly, he was sweating, beads of perspiration breaking out on his neck as his heartbeat doubled. 

What was going on? Where was he? Why couldn't he remember a thing? Not what he had for breakfast. Not how he ended up in an empty cornfield. 

He ran his hands through his hair, brushed the back of his palm over the beard that covered his chin, patted his cheeks, temples without recognition, even the round shape of his own ears feeling strangely unfamiliar. He wasn't bleeding, had no signs of any injuries, no aches or pains. If anything, his body felt charged and rearing to go. He felt like he could run. He _wanted_ to run.

As if hoping to spot another person in the vicinity on the second look around, he made a slow turn, crushed leaves rustling under his boots. The wind swayed the corn in a wave around him, emphasizing his solitude with the quiet whisper of the foliage. 

With the dirt road ahead the only sign of civilization, he headed in that direction, striding among the cornstalks. The road ran north based on the heading of the sun. He didn't understand how he could know that and not know his own name. Nothing made sense and his thoughts ran in self-defeating circles. He felt as if he was late for something, with no idea what that might be.

He was almost at the edge of the road when it occurred to him to look through his own pockets for an I.D. 

A minute later he was staring at a couple of bandages, a few different first-aid supplies, a piece of gum, two pieces of coiled wire cord, and a flip-phone. No identification of any kind. Quickly he flipped the phone open, hoping for something like 'Home' to be written in the contacts. Somewhere he could call, somewhere he belonged.

Instead, to his bewildered surprise, he only had a single contact entered into the phone. The name read 'Tony', which meant nothing to him.

What kind of a phone would only have one contact? Was he that anti-social? Didn't he have any friends? Any family?

Miraculously, the phone was fully charged. A quick scroll through his inbox revealed several draft messages. With a sense of trepidation, he opened the first one, hoping for a signature line, something that would let him know who he was. But the entirety of the draft message read: 

_Tony,_

He cursed and made himself page through the other message drafts. All of them led nowhere. A couple more started with a greeting. All addressed to the one person.

Whoever it was must have been important to him once.

Now... he didn't know what to do with this information. He put the phone back into his waist-pouch, and strode along the road.

About thirty seconds later he stopped on the side of the road and pulled the phone out again, flipping it open with a single motion. He stared at the sole contact for a moment, frowning, but whoever he was in the past who had hesitated to send those multiple messages ― he wasn't that guy anymore. With a quick thumb, he pushed the green talk button, and pressed the phone to his ear.

It rang for a long time. He was almost ready to abandon the idea when a person on the other end picked up. A quiet, gruff male voice that wouldn't have sounded out of place coming from a college professor said, "Hello? How do you have this number?"

"Tony?" he wondered.

"No, this is―" A sharp in-drawn breath sounded on the other end. "Steve? Is that you?"

Steve. 

It...sounded alright. A simple name. He could picture himself as a Steve.

The man on the other end was asking, "Where are you? What happened?" All questions he couldn't answer. "How are you even―" the voice drifted off. He could hear raised voices on the other end, male and female, a mass of questions and exclamations in rapid succession that he couldn't follow.

It didn't sound like the man on the other end was Tony. At this point, with his only link to an identity being tied to a particular person, he wasn't taking any chances by speaking to someone else.

He cleared his throat. "May I― I'd like to speak to Tony, if I can." Tense, he waited for an answer that came after a moment of quiet.

"O...kay..." The man on the other end said slowly, followed by noises that sounded like the phone changed hands.

For a second, Steve could only hear a deep in-drawn breath on the other end.

"Tony?" he tried again, tentatively. His sense of trepidation increased, his heart pounded in his chest. What if something had happened and Tony, whoever he was, wasn't around to help him. He didn't know anything about himself. He didn't know who to trust. He hung in limbo, until another voice spoke across the phone line ― a different man.

" _Is it you?_ " The intensity came through even across the phone line.

How the hell was he supposed to answer that?

The man on the other end spoke impatiently, rapidly, "Is it really you? _Steve_?" Desperation coloured the voice for a brief second, then the tone changed, grew angry. "If this is a prank call, I'm going to find whoever you are, and make you regret being born, you getting me?" The voice that had started out strong grew hoarse towards the end, and that's when Steve made a decision.

"Tony. It's me."

" _Steve!_ " A gasped plea and silence; only jagged breathing on the other end.

"I don't know where I am." Steve strove for calm, trying to find his footing with this stranger who knew him. "I don't know what happened. I― I need―" _I need help_ , he wanted to say, but the words wouldn't pass his lips.

"You vanished three months ago! After― After the big fight―" Tony, for it was surely him, interrupted himself, demanding, "What happened?!"

"I don't know." He didn't know anything. The only thing he understood with perfect clarity was that the voice on the other end of the phone cared about him. That was obvious just from the way the man said his name. And Steve knew it was his. The name fit like a well-worn glove.

 _I am Steve_ , he thought in the confines of his own head, shutting his eyes as the sun blazed one final time and rolled below the horizon. "I don't remember anything."

A brief, surprised silence. "What do you mean you don't remember?"

He stared along the path of the dirt road stretching out in front of him into infinity. It was quickly growing darker. "I woke up in a field. I... I had this phone. I don't remember how I got here or anything else." 

"Nothing?" Tony asked in disbelief. "You don't remember―?"

"Nothing," Steve kept his voice firm.

" _Wow,_ " his voice sounded so _lost._ "If this is a creative plan to drive me around the bend: it's working."

Steve drew in a shuddering breath. "This isn't about you!" he barked into the phone, a wave of powerful frustration slamming into him out of nowhere. Running a hand through his hair, he grabbed a fistful and pulled, hoping to hold back the anger and hurt he felt rising in his chest. The emotions felt overwhelming and too sudden.

There was a cut-off noise, almost like a fragile laugh, and the voice on the other end went soft, intimate, like a secret. "And here I thought _everything_ was about me."

"Oh, God!" Steve said, pulling harder on his hair now, trying to focus on that, because that pain was somehow easier to bear than the horrible helplessness of his entire situation. "I don't understand this. I don't know what I'm _doing_ here! I don't know who I am!" He was gasping for breath. "I don't know―" _Anything_ , his mind whispered. _You have nothing and no one._

"Steve," the voice on the other end sharpened, no longer wobbly with emotion, or at least not weakened by it. "That's a terrible joke; my bad. Okay. We can do this." Tony sounded steady and strong; full of mission. "Don't move a muscle. I'm going to get you, okay?" It sounded like a promise. 

"Okay," he whispered. _Please_ , he didn't add. But he felt it. Oh, he felt it with every fiber of his being.

"It's gonna be alright, Cap," Tony said, and Steve could almost believe him. "Just tell me what you see around you and we'll go from there. Friday―"  


 

* * *

 

Scared and sad. Sad and scared. 

Those were the entirety of his feelings while he waited alone by the side of the road for someone to come get him.

Steve tried to picture Tony, but he'd drawn a complete blank on the face of the man. Nothing occurred to him when he tried to picture his own mother and father, or any possible siblings. Steve couldn't remember what his own face looked like, and he patted it again, feeling the high cheeks, the straight ridge of the nose, the bristles of the beard that slid across his fingertips. This conjured an image of a lumberjack. He wanted to shave the first chance he got.

A minute later he had other things to worry about. Steve nearly jumped out of his skin when a suit of armor fell out of the sky, landing crouched with an outstretched hand on the ground, almost making a dent in the side of the road. Steve stumbled back a step. Not out of fear, exactly, but with a deep apprehension that suddenly made his heart hammer excitedly in his chest. A tang of metal filled the air, Steve could almost taste it.

The figure straightened, and Steve marveled as, in a wave, the metal slid away from the head to reveal a human face, a dark-haired man with striking brown eyes. He was flushed, as if he'd just come from a run, or maybe flying the armored suit itself had been an exertion. Strands of dark hair were plastered against his forehead with sweat. 

"It's really you..." The familiar voice proved this was Tony, who regarded him as if he couldn't believe his own eyes. He was practically vibrating with tension. It was oddly reassuring that Steve wasn't the only one at odds.

"Guess so." Steve spread his arms wide.

Tony came a few steps closer, as if pulled by a magnetic force. 

"You came," Steve said with some wonder, watching the rest of the armored suit melt away and vanish, leaving only a slightly-shorter man dressed in a casual black tracksuit.

"Told you I'd be here," Tony said with a quiet ferocity. Then tipped his chin up, regarding Steve with an intensity that made him shiver and again went to step forward, quickly aborted, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. Tony looked like the effort to hold back cost him.

"So, you, uh... remember anything yet, Rogers? You recognize this devilishly handsome face?" he indicated himself.

"Sorry," Steve said and then, hopefully, because one word in that rapid fire speech had been specifically aimed at him: "You said... 'Rogers'?" 

"Wow," Tony stared, mouth slightly agape. " _Steve Rogers_ doesn't ring a bell?"

Steve shook his head. His last name?

"Captain America? Nothing?" Tony tried again.

Mutely, Steve shook his head once more. It sounded like some kind of a cocktail.

He said so, only to have Tony do a double-take and give a gasping laugh. Instantly, Tony covered his own mouth with a palm, keeping the noise inside. He turned his face away, hiding his expression. It seemed not unlike his reaction on the phone, a kind of hysterical laughter he couldn't seem to stop. "Sorry, I'm a mess― it's not funny," he said once he'd calmed down marginally. When he looked back at Steve, his eyes seemed brighter, almost joyful, as he said in a slightly hoarse voice, "Wasn't sure I'd ever see you again, Cap."

"What happened to me?" Steve asked.

"Oh, you know," Tony waved a dismissive hand. "End of the world stuff."

The sound of that was like a weight settling on Steve's shoulders. "What _stuff_?"

"You saved everyone," Tony said simply and smiled fondly at Steve's look of disbelief. "Not even kidding. There are three point five billion people on Earth alone who owe you their lives. Three months ago there was this outrageous fight involving jewelry, and you put it on, and voila: everyone went back to normal. Or, well―" he shrugged and seemed to indicate the cornfields around them with a raised brow.

Unable to process any of that in any measured way, Steve put a hand to his forehead, laughing a little at the comically dubious expression on Tony's face.

Tony's lips quirked in a smile pleased with himself. It eased the expression on his face, which only in retrospect had seemed to Steve wounded somehow. Tony still would not come any closer. Steve found with some surprise he wanted him to. He wanted to grab Tony's hand, shake it maybe, touch it to feel it, that Tony was real and here, just because Steve had asked.

The sound of the helicopter's blades reached their ears and Steve glanced up, involuntarily seeking the source of the increasing noise, noting the approach of the black-bodied aircraft. Instantly, his stomach tensed up and he had the urge to reach behind him, to grab some sort of protection. It felt pointless, there was nothing at his back but cornfields. He pulled himself together, stepping into what he hoped was a lose stance, hands at his sides.

However, Tony's glance towards the fast approaching aircraft was relaxed. "It's a friendly," he informed Steve, keenly noting his agitation despite Steve's attempts to hide it. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to be carrying five Infinity Stones on you?" Tony asked casually, waiting for the helicopter to land. He didn't seem to expect an answer.

Steve could see now there was no pilot, and even before the helicopter could settle on the ground completely, a red-headed woman clad in all black leather was hopping out of the door, bending her head low to avoid the whirr of the still-rotating blades, as her ponytail trailed behind her. "Steve!" She ran towards them and just as Steve opened his mouth in greeting, he found himself with an armful of the beautiful redhead. She was hugging him.

His hands came up to hold her of their own accord and he couldn't deny that it was nice, to feel that kind of closeness to another human being.

"That's Nat," Tony said helpfully from where he stood, shuffling a bit foot to foot, and glancing away as if the sight of their dramatic embrace pained him. Though... he was also smiling? Steve glanced down at the woman in his arms in confusion, then back at Tony, and their eyes met. Tony's were wide and wet with an unnamed emotion.

Then Tony huffed, swallowed it all down. "It's like she missed you or something." He brushed invisible lint off the shoulder of his suit with a casual flick of hand.

" _Shut up, Tony_ ," she said through clenched teeth with a rough tremble in her voice, and clutched Steve tighter for one more second before letting go. "God, Steve. You're alive!" 

"I am," Steve said, feeling a tug on his lips at the infectious smile on her face; he also realized his cheeks were flushing. "I'm sorry, I don't, uh―"

"Natasha," Tony helpfully suggested the name.

Natasha stepped back. "Nothing, huh?" she gave a considering stare, and bit her lip. 

"Well, I remember some things," Steve hurried to assure. At their twin raised brows, he said, "Like the direction of the sun in the sky, or that we're in the Northern hemisphere, or how to use a phone..."

"Procedural memory, but not episodic?" Tony said. "We've got to have Bruce take a look at you."

"He is not that kind of a doctor," Natasha said with a sigh.

"But he is the only doctor remotely qualified who's seen the Infinity Stones in action. Cap clearly doesn't have a scratch on him," ― Tony gave Steve a full-body once-over that made Steve's skin tighten for some reason ― "so Bruce is our best bet. He is back at the compound. Come on," he motioned towards the helicopter with a jerk of his chin.

Nodding, Natasha started to turn back towards the helicopter.

"The compound?" Steve repeated, hesitating when they both apparently expected him to follow.

"Does the name _Avenger_ mean anything to you?" Natasha glanced back at him.

Steve tried not to show that he was getting tired of having to answer this type of question, but she knew somehow, because her lips quirked with fond affection. "You're gonna like this one, I promise."  


 

* * *

 

Steve's hushed 'wow' when the compound came in sight had Tony preening a bit. Steve noted this with a sense of amusement mixed with confusion. He found the quicksilver turns of Tony's moods to be startling in their intensity. The guy emoted so much it made Steve feel all locked up in his joints, as if he could only stand there, like a statue, not able to reciprocate in any appropriate way.

One moment Tony had a distant, withdrawn look in his eyes, the next he was motioning towards the front door with an expectant, "Well, what are you waiting for, a written invitation?"

Steve, who had paused at the entrance to take it all in ― the impressive grounds and the expansive building structure they landed in front of ― made himself move inside the main building. Full of metal and glass, it should have put him off, but Steve felt like he knew what was behind each corner with some sort of sense memory. Each time a new hall or a new room came into view, something inside him said: _yes, this is right_. And he had to trust that gut feeling, didn't he?

Bruce turned out to be a short man with graying hair and glasses who smiled wide at the sight of Steve. He came to greet him and hugged Steve as well. "Thank god you're back," he said, patting Steve's arm. He didn't ask Steve if he remembered anything, just introduced himself with the same quiet tones that Steve recognized from earlier on the phone. "I couldn't believe it when you called." 

"You're gonna take a look at him, right?" Tony asked without a preamble. "It's gotta be some kind of a left-over from handling the Gauntlet. Friday, scan his brain. Put the results on Bruce's StarkPad."

"Tony..." Bruce started.

"What Gauntlet?" Steve asked.

"It's a really long story," Bruce said, sharing a significant look with the others.

Steve found himself unconsciously widening his stance, planting his feet stubbornly where he stood in the middle of the living room. "I've got time."

"Well, he is definitely Cap," Tony said with an exasperated roll of his eyes, and turned away to go pour himself coffee at one of the side tables.

"You keep calling me that," Steve said. "What does it mean? Short for Captain?"

"Got it in one, mon capitaine," Tony called across the shoulder not turning around.

"Don't act like you're not jumping from joy on the inside." Natasha gave Tony's back a sidelong look. She quickly turned to Steve. "We all missed you, Steve. It's been a hellish three months, thinking you were gone."

"I told you he would turn up," Tony put in casually.

"Yeah," Bruce said, giving Tony's back a look of familiar fondness one gives a precocious child. Then he turned to study Steve, "I suppose the name Thanos doesn't ring a bell?"

The next little while Steve spent with his eyebrows climbing progressively higher as Bruce and Natasha caught him up with the highlights from the time they'd seen him last. The super soldier serum. Something about sleeping in the ice, which sounded truly awful. And apparently, there'd been a Mad Titan who brought his army to Earth and wiped out half of the population with magic, only for the team ― Steve's team, the Avengers ― to reverse the spell using the Infinity Gauntlet that Steve himself wielded.

"That's the Cliff's Notes version," Natasha said at the end of the tale, while Bruce looked at the hand-held tablet he'd brought, reading Steve's vitals. The three of them presently occupied a couple of white leather sofas, facing each other, Natasha sitting next to Steve. Bruce sat on the other sofa, across the glass coffee table, most of his attention on his readings. He hypothesized that the excess energy of using the Gauntlet had transported Steve through time and space but hedged about any possible reason why, other than random chance. "We weren't actually there when you used the Infinity Gauntlet." Natasha glanced expectantly at Tony, who had turned to face them at some point and was now leaning on the counter, his arms crossed on his chest. Steve wondered why his posture read as defensive, until Tony said:

"Yeah, it was me and you, at the end." He uncrossed his hands, stuck them into his pockets. His voice was nonchalant when he spoke, "We'd all decided it would be you, handling it. The power was immense and we thought the super soldier serum would help. But..." he trailed off and lifted one hand up to scratch his forehead with a thumb, looking away, saying almost casually, "You screamed. Then you were gone."

"And then what?"

Tony shrugged one shoulder to indicate: then nothing.

With a pang of hurt, Steve muttered, "You did nothing?" A brief grimace twisted Tony's expression, there and gone like a shadow. Steve instantly felt awful.

"He had a barely-healed stab wound through the chest," Natasha put in mildly, giving Steve a cool look. He nodded contritely, and her protective glare softened.

"Yeah, I wasn't very mobile," Tony admitted. "So you just... said your goodbyes and..." he trailed off, staring into the distance. Steve studied him and wondered if this was indifference or trauma, because it sure looked like Tony was trying to pretend it was the former, even as his body-language bled with signs of being far more affected than he wanted to let on.

"Didn't realize you had time for a chat," Bruce wondered mildly. "I thought it all happened too fast?" The words had a rehearsed quality to them, as if he'd heard Tony explain it that way before: _it all happened too fast_. 

Tony shrugged. His eyes couldn't seem to settle. "There wasn't much time, and besides, when have you ever known us to talk things through?" he said with a self-deprecating twist to his mouth. From the reaction of Bruce and Natasha, Steve understood there was a history there. Tony went on, "Anyway, as I've told you a hundred times: there was a brilliant flash of light. I must have passed out. By the time I came to, Cap wasn't there. His shield was on the ground, the gauntlet was scorched, and all the Infinity Stones had vanished. End of story." Tony turned to Bruce. "Are you gonna fix him or what?"

"I don't know that I can, Tony," Bruce said in his careful tones intended to calm. "According to what I'm reading on these scans, there's nothing physically wrong with Steve." He gave Steve a tiny smile, as if to reassure him, and Steve nodded. He didn't feel ill or like anything was amiss ― aside from a lifetime of memories, of course.

Tony wasn't so easily appeased. "Friday?"

A woman's voice came from the air around them, not any particular direction, but all of them at once, "Captain Rogers appears to be in peak physical condition."

Steve glanced up, slightly bewildered. "Is that an A.I.?"

"Yes. I am happy to see you alive and relatively well, Captain Rogers," the female voice that had to be Friday responded again.

"See!" Tony swirled on Bruce at the same time, suddenly full of energy, practically vibrating with it. "You know what _that_ means."

"The fact that Steve knows terms like 'A.I.' means that he has retained some declarative memories as well as procedural," Bruce agreed. "It's only episodic or autobiographical memories that appear to be affected." He studied Steve again. "How do you feel?"

Steve thought about it. 

"Hungry," he said, sheepish.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

If ever there was a way to lose your appetite, it was watching newsreels from a World War while eating dinner.

"That's really me?" Steve had asked, but only once.

He felt like a different person from the young guy laughing on the screen, another brown-haired man smiling wide next to him. They told him that was James "Buchanan" Barnes, a childhood friend, now also an Avenger. 

Barnes and someone called Sam Wilson ― the Falcon ― were currently in Wakanda. From all that, Steve only connected with the idea that Wakanda was across the world from Upstate New York. Apparently, he'd retained his sense of geography. He hoped he'd meet them soon.

"Some of it might be hard to watch," Bruce said at one point in the montage, a quick hop-along through the life and death of one Steve Rogers. "You won't believe me, but you might be glad to have lost some of your memories."

Steve doubted it.

He was ravenous for information, trying to absorb as much as possible to regain the footing he'd lost somewhere in his past. 

When asked, they showed him some footage from Wakanda, a colourful land that cheered him to see, as if just knowing it was still there, safe, he was more easily able to relax. Tony mumbled something about calling on their scientists and healers if they couldn't make headway with Steve's memories on their own. Tony was mostly a silent presence at their back, hardly participating in the conversation, while Steve stuffed his face and Natasha and Bruce nibbled on their own dinner.

It was getting late, but nobody would even mention going to bed. Steve couldn't have slept if he tried. Everything still felt too pressing, too important for him to shut his eyes even for a moment.

They showed him some of the current news reels. The freshly-made statue of him they put up in Arlington, carrying the American flag, with the plaque inscription about saving billions. So he was a little famous following his second 'death'.

They showed him the high-school PSAs he had recorded, but that was more to embarrass than to educate, he thought. At least he knew they weren't kidding about him being a national icon even before the business with the Gauntlet. The PSAs achieved one result. He knew now that a whole generation of kids were growing up listening to him, looking up to him ― or rather to Captain America.

An icon. A hero.

The shiny costume in the reel made him pause and look down at his own chest, at the blackened star there, the rips in the uniform.

"You should change," Tony asserted with a certain aggressive, commanding tone to his words. "I'll go check your room is in a good shape." Without another word he swirled on his feet and left the room.

Steve watched him go in confusion, glancing down at his uniform again. He couldn't see what had caused the sudden drop in temperature. 

"Tony's just―" Bruce sighed. "Tony. He wants to fix this. Badly."

"Let him try. He'll be unbearable, but he means well," Natasha added, sticking a carrot between her teeth and snapping off the tip. "Now that you're back he lost his favourite obsession."

Steve glanced at her curiously, but didn't ask. Natasha answered his unspoken question anyway, "Oh, looking for you, of course."

Steve looked back the way Tony had left for a long moment, his thoughts drawn in that direction.

"Straight ahead, third door on the left," Bruce put in, flashing a kindly smile at Steve's startled look his way. Steve wondered if he was completely transparent. He returned Bruce's friendly smile with an uncomfortable one of his own, sliding out from his chair to go find his room. To find Tony.

When he had already turned the corner, he heard Natasha's mild, "That a good idea?" and Bruce's quiet answer, "Maybe not, but it's necessary. Ever since Pepper left, he's got no one to distract him."

Steve thought he wasn't meant to overhear that.

He had already been led to understand that Tony financed this entire compound with his own seemingly infinite funds. Standing before the third door on the left, a massive wooden thing that felt strangely intimidating, he steeled himself for something fancy, full of metal and glass. 

The insides of his room surprised him. Old furniture and wooden floors. A simple woolen duvet thrown casually across the bed. A large landscape photograph on the wall of some empty beach that looked rather nice.

Tony lowered a round shield he held with both hands to the bed. He'd been staring at it, lost in thought when Steve came in, and now looked somehow flustered. As Steve's eyes fell on the concentric red-white-and-blue circles of the shield, the white star in the middle, he found himself wanting to pick it up. Steve resisted the pull. Taking the shield up would feel like a step closer to the identity of Captain America, and he wasn't ready for that.

Tony glanced between Steve and the shield with a tiny frown on his forehead. The obvious concern made it easier to say what Steve realized he came here to say.

"I appreciate everything you're doing to help me, Tony."

"Don't thank me yet. We still need your memories back."

"Memories or not. I owe you―"

"Nothing," Tony interrupted. When Steve just stared at him in consternation, he repeated, "You owe me nothing. Because it's my fault you're like this."

"What?"

"We all knew whoever wielded the Gauntlet would subject themselves to powers on a cosmic level. And I knew―" Tony turned away, his back to Steve, constantly hiding his eyes. "You weren't right in the head. Just before the final battle you told me you didn't know what else you had left to give. I should have listened."

Steve blinked at him. "That doesn't make it your fault."

"Maybe not. I don't know. But..." Tony looked back at him, gaze blazing with conviction. "I will damn well make sure you'll get them back, Cap."

Understanding that guilt motivated Tony dampened some of the enthusiasm Steve had felt before, but, he supposed it'd been foolish to hope for more. So Tony felt guilty, and that inspired his generosity towards Steve. Still, Steve thought, he was a good man, to go out of his way for someone like this, to feel responsible for their well-being enough to take action. Tony was Iron Man, another hero like Captain America. Maybe it was just what he did, no reason to dwell on a deeper meaning than that. Steve felt tired, but he shoved that aside, and cast about for something to get off the awkward topic, sensing Tony was equally uncomfortable as they stood in the middle of Steve's bedroom, lost for words. 

"Do the four of us live here alone?" Steve wondered.

"God no," Tony said immediately. "Don't worry, your BFF is on his way here as we speak."

"My...?"

"Bucky," Tony said, turning away and pacing towards the desk by the wall, where he unnecessarily straightened a lamp. "He's gonna be thrilled to see you. And you'll meet the others soon enough. Someone's always floating or crawling or swinging around here somewhere," he said vaguely.

Steve set those descriptives aside for later and asked, "Who's Bucky?"

Tony picked up a pencil and began to fiddle with it with far too much interest. "He is your ...friend...person. Oh my god, I just said that?" Tony paused in wonder staring at the wall. He set the pencil down firmly, and stuck his hands into his pant pockets. It felt like a familiar gesture to Steve by now. Tony said, still talking somewhere off to the side, "James Barnes. Bucky. He is your best friend, Steve. And I'm really tired. I need to go, okay?"

"Hey, Tony? Did I say something?" _To make you unable to look at me_ , Steve thought, but didn't say aloud.

"No, you're fine, everything's fine," Tony said, walking out of the room, not turning around. "Glad to have you back, Cap," he threw over his shoulder before vanishing behind a corner.

A moment of hesitation, and Steve chased after him.

He turned the cornet at a near run, and even so it was only a second that he had to register Tony standing with one hand against the wall for support, the other one clutched in a fist at his chest. His head was bowed, and curls of dark hair fell on his forehead. He was biting his lower lip, and his expression, what Steve glimpsed of it, was tormented with an emotion Steve couldn't begin to ascribe a name.

As soon as he realized he had company, Tony straightened his spine and let his expression grow mild, placidly blank, letting the supporting wall go and slowly lowering his hand to the side. He stuck his fists into his pant pockets again, convulsively. His voice still sounded wrecked when he said, "What is it?" trying for brisk and missing by a mile.

Steve felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest just from a glimpse of whatever it was Tony was trying to hide.

"I won't apologize," Steve said noting the immediate eye-roll it earned him, "because I have no idea what happened. But if you tell me, I'll try not to do it again."

"As if you could stop being you," Tony muttered, and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here, talking about this.

"Is that it?" Steve said, with a startlingly powerful sadness. "You don't want me here?"

"Fuck, that's not even close." Tony shut his eyes briefly. "Wanting you here was never an issue, Rogers."

The sense of relief was brief. "Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Call me by my last name." Steve didn't know much about himself, but he didn't think he was the kind afraid to look danger in the face, and that's what he felt he was doing now, with his frank question. Nobody else called him Rogers. Were they friends or weren't they? Steve was being yanked around like a yo-yo by the rise and fall in Tony's quicksilver moods. "What happened between us before I lost my memory?"

"Straight to the point," Tony said, still prevaricating. "You haven't changed."

"And you're trying to change the subject."

"Cap, the stuff between us could fill a book. I don't want to get into it this late. I'm thrilled, I'm positively ecstatic that you're back. Let's just leave it at that."

"Okay," Steve said. And, "For today." Tony groaned. "But one day soon I want to know what's in that book."

"No, you don't," Tony said.

As Steve's brow creased in confusion, Tony added, strangely acerbic, as if the words he was forcing through his lips pained him somehow, "Maybe you should ask yourself if it isn't a blessing to get a clean slate like you did. You've lived through some pretty difficult times."

"And you?" Steve regretted the snap in his voice but couldn't hold it back. "Would you want to stay like this?"

"No." Tony lowered his eyes. "I would always rather know."

"So would I, Tony." Steve tilted his head trying to catch Tony's gaze, until those dark eyes met his again, and held. Every time he stared into Tony's eyes, his breath caught in his throat, and this time was no exception. His voice came out thick: "I need to know."

Tony pressed his lips together and grimaced. "We should have Strange look at you tomorrow. If this is magic, he'll know."

"Strange?"

"Kind of an asshole with style, but he is the resident magical expert."

"Magic?" Steve repeated skeptically.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know."  


 

* * *

 

Manhattan was muggy and sweltering with an oppressive heat that afternoon. They waited for an answer to their knock by the large wooden doors, and Steve noticed Tony pat the back of his own neck dry with a handkerchief. Steve was suddenly grateful for his serum, which apparently made it easier to bear high temperatures. In any case, he didn't feel nearly as uncomfortable in the heat as Tony clearly did, if the slight flush on his cheeks just below the red-tinted sunglasses was any sign. Seeing that high-color on Tony's cheeks did kick Steve's heart-rate up a notch, but he wrote it down as amusement over the man who clearly liked to look put-together getting his due for wearing a three-piece suit in this heat.

"The guy needs to learn to answer his phone," Tony muttered and pounded his fist against the heavy wooden doors again. He was cranky since morning, and didn't look like he'd slept a wink. Neither had Steve.

"Hello?" Tony shouted, clearly expecting to be heard by the residents of the New York Sanctum Sanctorum, and paying no heed to the passersby. The two of them received no wide-eyed looks for loitering outside an otherwise nondescript door, which, after noticing Steve's concerned fidgeting, Tony explained came down to some sort of magical charms that made the entire building undetectable to the average New Yorker, unless they already knew it was there.

"Like in Harry Potter?" Steve found himself asking.

Tony's glance at him was unexpectedly unguarded. "You remember reading Harry Potter?"

"I don't know." Thinking about it any harder felt like slamming up against an invisible wall. He couldn't remember why he'd thought of the books, or when he read them, or why. "It just...popped into my head."

Tony considered him seriously. "All that stuff's still there." He sounded happier than he had all day.

"I don't remember reading it."

"You've scrambled your brains pretty well, Cap," Tony said with a forced lightness. "But Strange can put the marbles back into the box."

He turned to pound on the door again, just as another tall, dark-haired man opened the door a crack, glaring at the two of them. "No, I can't."  


 

* * *

 

As it happened, Doctor Strange didn't answer the phone because the phone company had cut the service for non-payment. Privately, Steve thought being a great magician and all ― at least according to Tony ― Strange could have figured out a way around the bills, but he wasn't voicing that thought out of politeness. Regardless, Strange was no help whatsoever when it came to Steve's memories.

"Examine him again," Tony insisted.

"I've examined the metaphysical energies around Steve Rogers twice now. From my perspective, there's nothing wrong with him. Repeating the same action over and over expecting a different result is a sign of insanity, you know." Strange looked pointedly at Tony.

"Shut up and look again. There must be something!" Tony paced the room. Doctor Strange rolled his eyes heavenward.

Steve felt terrible, imposing on this man who was a stranger, not to mention guilty for the frustration he read in every line of Tony's body. "It's alright, Tony, I―"

"It's not alright!" Tony glared his way. "You need your memories back."

"I do, but--"

"It's not like you to give up so easily," Tony drew back, blinking at Steve with a look of _hurt_ , like they were _his_ memories.

"--maybe this isn't the way." A frown crossed his face. " _You_ sure want me to have them back," Steve stated. "Why?" and when Tony blinked rapidly and didn't answer, Steve narrowed his eyes. "What happened between us?"

Strange threw his hands up in frustration and walked out of the room.

Still, Tony wouldn't give an answer, stubbornly pressing his lips together.

"What happened?" Steve asked, but softly now.

"I just want you back," Tony said, staring past Steve's shoulder. "Not the pod-person you who doesn't get my references. The real you."

"I _am_ the real me," Steve said quietly, feeling like Tony's words cut deep, surprising him with the suddenness of the attack. Since he'd woken up in this strange world, without his memories, Tony had been his life-line, the one thing that he'd depended on to guide him. A part of him wasn't sure he was meant to get his memories back from the beginning, but he thought maybe that would be alright, because his friends would still want him, Tony would still want him like this. Maybe that had been a false hope. To have all those feelings, that need, dismissed so easily as not real left Steve feeling lost. 

"Look," Tony said, unerringly sensing the struggle in Steve ― and wasn't it just the confirmation Steve needed that they were attuned to one another? Tony always paid attention to him. He went on, voice suddenly gruff, "These past couple of months, I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again. There was no trace of you anywhere. I looked." Steve wanted to apologize but it wasn't like that'd help. "They all said you must be dead. But _I_ was the one who saw you last. _I_ was there when you put on the Gauntlet, and I _knew_ ―in my heart―" Tony stumbled, the vulnerable look on his face filling Steve with a sense of deep restlessness, because he didn't know how to soothe it. "I had to believe we would find you again! For months I had to keep that hope alive. And I can't stop now. I'm not giving up." A determined look entered Tony's eyes, and he drew his chin up, as if daring Steve to argue. "We've been through so much together. Good and bad, and I just... I can't help missing that guy, okay?"

He looked so human, with none of the artifice that he presented as a barrier between them, and a little upset, and so very much like a friend that Steve needed right now. 

But that was being unfair. Tony just wanted his own friend back. He wanted Captain America. Everyone's hero. 

No one needed Steve Rogers when they could have that.  


 

* * *

 

After the situation with Doctor Strange failed to pan out into anything useful, Tony drove the two of them back to the compound.

Wilson and Barnes were there when they drove up. Steve had seen the two men pacing inside the front glass vestibule at the compound entrance as the car approached, his attention guided by the way Tony's eyes had been caught, watching the new arrivals even before the car came to a halt in the front yard.

"Go on," Tony said quietly when Steve glanced his way, uncertain what to make of the sudden spike in tension. Tony's hands were gripping the wheel tight. "They'll be glad to see you."

"Friends, right?" Steve asked, just to be sure.

Tony's expression was a strange mix of exasperation and something else, not quite so easy to identify. "Yeah," he said firmly and nodded, as if to back that up. "Go on." So Steve felt better stepping out of the car, just as the two men tore outside through the doors of the compound, running to meet them. There was something very familiar in their confident approach. Both were military, and they fell into step together with ease of long-standing practice. Comrades in arms. Steve noted instantly Barnes had an abnormal gait ― Steve knew about the metal arm he carried and noted with interest its weight showed in the way he favoured one side of the body. Seeing that gait set his mind at ease even before he could put a finger on why. 

"Hey," Steve said, clumsily as the two men came closer.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," the man Steve knew to be Bucky Barnes said somberly, stopping a foot away from Steve, before his face split into a shining smile and he moved forward to wrap his arms around Steve in a powerful embrace.

Sam followed up with his own hug once Bucky stepped back, but didn't quite let go, patting Steve's shoulder as if to make sure he was really here. The two of them were grinning, both slightly misty eyed, and so clearly friendly, so clearly happy and relieved to see him. Seeing that, Steve submitted to their attention easily, without reservation, even as somewhere in the back of his mind, a part of him sat up questioning the way everyone seemed to find a way to touch him, except Tony. Steve remembered his shuffling step forward, back in that corn-field, the way Tony had held himself back, and couldn't puzzle it out. Maybe Tony just didn't hug.

He turned around to look for the other man, and found Tony had already vanished inside the compound.

Steve tried not to feel disappointed, pulling up a smile for the two strangers who were his friends. Natasha came to meet them in the common room, with a kiss on the cheek for Sam and Bucky, each, the one for Bucky perhaps lingering a second longer. With Natasha there, the talk flowed, easily turning to what they had in-common, both men eager to discuss any number of lived-through experiences that prominently featured 'Cap'.

At some point they must have noticed Steve was growing uncomfortable, because the stories about Captain America's heroism dwindled, turned to something easier to swallow: Sam and Bucky's last trip to Wakanda. They were apparently close with the royal family there. So was Captain America, being a big damn hero and all. 

Steve didn't feel very heroic.

When he voiced that thought, Sam shrugged. "Don't think you ever have. Never did let it stop you from trying your best."

It was humbling, to be surrounded by these people who all seemed to think the world of him.

It made him even more determined to remember.

"You will," Bucky said later that evening, with a strange kind of certainty, while sitting across from him at the kitchen counter. 

After the initial commotion and the questions ebbed, the others had left the two of them alone in the kitchen, ostensibly to catch up, but they were both more interested in eating leftovers from the fridge than talking for quite some time. The Avengers compound was stocked to the brim with anything they could possibly want, Steve was finding out. And ― unlike the oppressively muggy streets of New York, or even the Sanctum Sanctorum, which had an unexpectedly strong cool draft, as if a window somewhere opened out to a chilly alpine region with a strong breeze ― the compound was air-conditioned just right for a t-shirt and jeans attire.

Bucky went on, "After the Gauntlet brought us all back, and you were gone, vanished I― I didn't know if we'd ever see you again. It was hard to believe when Stark said you couldn't be dead, and we did look―God, we looked all over, Stevie...but...nothing. And here you are now." He laughed, the way you laugh so you wouldn't cry. "You're gonna be _fine_. Banner says you've got to be. You'll remember everything, somehow. Too stubborn not too..." he trailed off, voice thick with emotion.

The Gauntlet. Vanished. Even having seen some horrifying recordings of The Snap, people vanishing like dust in the air, none of that made much sense to Steve, except for one very human thing he latched onto. "You looked for me? I know Tony tried..."

"Yeah, he had this whole telemetry project whipped up about five seconds after the final battle. Looking for you. I don't think he even went to sleep that very night; he just went straight to the next mission." Bucky shrugged.

"Oh," Steve couldn't quite conceal how happy the thought made him. It was almost worrying that Tony worked so hard for Steve. It sounded like they were close. The thought excited him. He also remembered again the easy way Sam and Bucky had hugged him, and the way Tony had shuffled foot to foot and didn't dare touch him. Was it guilt? He couldn't possibly blame himself, just because he had been the last to see Steve. He decided that the next time he talked to Tony, he'd assure him none of it was his fault. It couldn't be.

"But looks like you went and found yourself!" Bucky shook his head in wonder. "And now you're here, I bet Stark's figuring out a way to bring your memories back."

"He takes care of everything, doesn't he?" Steve chuckled, feeling his chest swell with warmth. "No wonder I had his phone number for emergencies."

"Uh, yeah," Bucky said, an odd look on his face.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that," Steve frowned. He may not have known Bucky for more than a few hours, but damn if he couldn't read the man like an open book. "What is it?"

The look Bucky gave him was a mix of exasperated fondness. "You might not want to know."

Suddenly the warmth left Steve. He frowned, serious at once. "Tell me."

"Okay, well...." Bucky hesitated. "I wasn't around for most of this. _Long_ story." He paused. "I hear you and Stark were pretty tight once."

"Were?" Steve jumped on the word. Dread began to pool in his stomach.

"You had a falling out." Bucky said somberly. "Well, not exactly―"

"But we're friends, aren't we?" Steve interrupted, glancing around the room uncertainly. He'd been so sure, with the way he'd been welcomed here, that this was his _home_. Just the feeling of these walls surrounding him gave him a sense of comfort and purpose. But now he thought about it, he remembered the wariness in Tony's face each time they spoke, the careful evaluating look that constantly searched his face as if looking for a particular memory. He'd thought it was simply his friend missing the person he used to be, but now, maybe it was something that went deeper than that.

Bucky's quiet, "I don't know," nearly set him adrift in his thoughts. "That's between the two of you. I think you need to talk to Stark about this."

"But I―" Steve stumbled over the words, "I don't know― what to say."

A smile quirked Bucky's lips. "Just ask him what you asked me. Let Stark do the talking."

At Steve's dubious eyebrow quirked his way, Bucky's smile slanted, a strange, conflicted sympathy on his face. "Honestly, I think if you two don't talk, he's liable to explode from keeping a lid on it."

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Tony, when Steve found him in the workshop, was standing next to a reclined chair with a complicated wiring surrounding it. He was wearing his glasses and adjusting something, lost in thought when Steve knocked on the glass door. Tony immediately turned around, and waved him inside, indicating for him to press his fingers to the biometric scanner that unlocked the door.

"Meet Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or B.A.R.F for short because you're going to want to hurl from the headache this gives you," Tony started without a preamble as soon as Steve stepped inside. 

"Why would it do that?" Steve asked cautiously approaching the chair. It looked like something you might find at the dentist's office, leather-clad and comfortable-looking if you ignored the alarming amount of wiring.

Tony's eyes were sparkling with manic excitement. "It's a method of hijacking the hippocampus. Basically, it hooks into your long-term memory centers and pushes the data into your short term memory very briefly. The original purpose is re-framing, but with a few minor adjustments I think we can use it to make you remember." Tony glanced at the chair, then back at Steve's blank expression and started talking even faster. "Don't worry, I've tested it on myself." Steve wasn't at all calmed by that. "And the Wakandan princess had a few really interesting ideas for how we could make it work. Get in the chair, Steve." Tony motioned at it with a flourish.

When Steve didn't immediately acquiesce, Tony tilted his head in cautious confusion.

Steve was alarmed by the way his own heart clenched at the hurt slowly starting to make its way into Tony's expression as Steve failed to immediately share his excitement. "Yeah, okay," Steve rushed to say, and clambered into the chair without another thought. Tony was doing this for Steve. "Go for it."

A faint cant of a smile to his lips, Tony went to fiddle with the wires at the back of the chair.

"I actually came here to talk," Steve started to say, while Tony put electrodes up against the back of his neck. Their cold circles felt alien and intrusive against his skin, but Tony stood close enough that Steve could smell his faint cologne and he found himself helplessly leaning in a fraction of an inch, turning his head towards Tony. A frustrated want curled in his belly, tightening sweetly. He wanted to ask why Tony cared so much, when he found the time in between everything else he was doing to devote this much attention to Steve. What it all meant. But he couldn't find an easy way to ask, just like he couldn't figure out a way to touch Tony. 

"Talk?" Tony said, the tentative start of a smile slipping off his lips. He immediately glanced away, as if his face would reveal something he didn't want it to, fiddling with one of the screens. "We haven't really _talked_ in... oh, over two years? Maybe that ship's sailed, Rogers."

Steve discovered that he hated when Tony called him 'Rogers'. Steve and 'Cap' was okay, but this purposeful distance felt awful.

"But you were in my phone's contacts list," Steve half-asked, unsure of his footing, feeling like a bull in a china shop.

Tony looked up at him, his expression strange. Steve couldn't read him at all.

"You'll understand when you get your memories back," he snapped, and then clammed up on the subject and wouldn't say more. 

He talked instead about how the memory would feel, sliding from long-term storage into the forefront of Steve's mind. "It'll take less than a second, but for you, it'll feel like you're there." The thought wasn't comforting, and it must have shown on his face. "I don't think you'll need to re-experience your entire life," Tony hurried to reassure him. "More like we are teaching your brain again where the memories are stored. They must be still there, since you understand what I'm telling you―"

"Don't be so sure about that," Steve muttered.

"―which means the data is still there, we just need to point your brain to it." Tony snapped his fingers and smiled.

"Okay," Steve took a steadying breath. "How bad can it be?"  


 

* * *

 

"Steve―! Steve," Tony's hands were on his shoulders, and it was the only anchor he had. His whole body flushed, full of adrenaline, and still trying to drag in gulps of air before his brain caught up with realization that his airway passage was unobstructed. Steve was sweating profusely as his cardiovascular system kicked into overdrive, still believing it was an emergency. In the memory, his body had felt like he was dying. "You're okay. You're back. You're here," Tony was saying and Steve blinked his eyes to clear them, until Tony's concerned face swam into view. 

There was nothing sweeter than being able to breathe. Steve swallowed and, hearing the screech of metal bending, tried to stop his white-knuckled grip on the handles of the chair. 

Tony studied him a moment, before letting his shoulders go, "Okay?" He waited for a nod, then walked over to the nearby table.

Steve tried to quickly and discretely wipe the tears prickling in the corners of his eyes as soon as Tony's back was turned. He was a mess. Everything felt too close: the swirling lights in the room that reported statistics from the sensor on his skin, screeching in red about abnormal heart rhythm. The leather of the chair wet from the sweat that had soaked his t-shirt now clung unpleasantly to the skin of his back. Steve covered his face with his hands. They felt massive; his whole body felt like it didn't fit. That's when the headache hit and Steve groaned, leaning his head back against the headrest, squeezing his eyes shut, his hands clenching into fists as he tried to press them to his brow, as if to squeeze the pain out. The wave of it throbbed under the skin, enormous and shooting at the temples with piercing deep pulses.

"Yeah, this is the unpleasant part," Tony said in a near whisper, meant not to disturb Steve's overstimulated brain. Steve turned to the noise, opening his eyes into slits even though it hurt worse this way. Tony was looking rather sympathetic, standing nearby with a dish of water and a small towel in his hands. "The headache is a little intense, but it goes away. Here," he said, and wrung out a wet cloth into the dish. He put the wet compress to Steve's forehead, brushing away the sweat. At the cool feeling of the cloth, Steve groaned a little and let his eyes slip shut again. "This should help," Tony said quietly, brushing his brow with slow, steady movements. "At least I always think it would feel nice when I'm in your shape."

He used the cloth to wipe the side of Steve's face, from the temple down to his chin, before wetting it in the water again and doing the other side. Steve lay under his hands and tried to examine the memory that had previously consumed him. "I was sick..." he murmured, when the idea of speaking didn't make him feel ill anymore. "Couldn't breathe. Like a panic attack."

"You know what those are like?" Tony asked softly.

"Yeah," Steve said even before he recognized what he was admitting to. He didn't know how he knew. 

He opened his eyes to Tony's quiet, "Hmm," that sounded like regret. Tony didn't stop brushing Steve's face with the wet cloth, just looked at him steadily, waiting for him to continue.

Already, Steve felt a little better. "Asthma attack, I think," he murmured, recognizing it with the familiarity of slipping on an old glove.

"You got them before the serum," Tony agreed with a nod. He didn't seem to recognize the intimacy of what he was doing, mopping Steve's brow while Steve lay there and accepted every touch. Or if he did, he didn't care. Steve found that he didn't care for social conventions either. The touch felt nice.

"It felt so real," he said eventually, whispering it like a confession into the quiet of the room. For however long it took, he'd been sure he was dying, just like he'd been sure in the memory.

Tony nodded. "A blessing and a curse. I sometimes―" he broke off, and looked down.

"What?" Steve asked softly, desperate to know.

Tony shrugged, all casual, but his gaze wouldn't settle on anything. His hand stilled in its movements, frozen against Steve's temple. "It can be addictive. If the memory is nice enough." 

"What do you go back to, when you use this?" Steve wondered.

The eyes that turned to look at Steve were sad. "Oh mostly, I torture myself with the might-have-beens. If I'd said something, done something differently, that kind of thing." Tony blinked slowly, and seemed to gather himself, forging bravely on once he did. "I went back to when you put the Gauntlet on, while you were gone." He looked almost expectant, and then bit his lip, averting his eyes again, as if ashamed of their expressiveness. "Of course, you don't remember that." 

It felt like a bigger admission than Steve could understand; he had no context for it. "I wish I did," Steve said. He wanted to make Tony look at him again, but had to hold himself still so he wouldn't dislodge Tony's hands. They had returned to their purposeful movements over his face, wiping away the headache with soothing coolness of the wet compress. His forehead still pulsed with the waves of pain, cresting and subsiding, but it was bearable, and he focused on Tony using his voice to distract himself. "I want to remember."

"You sure?" Tony said with a little quirk to his lips that seemed to say he wouldn't judge Steve either way. "I guarantee you that asthma attack is not the worst you've lived through."

"Gotta be some good in there, right?" Steve said, trying for upbeat and ending up hopefully questioning instead. He felt certain, yes, it seemed inevitable ― Tony would tell him they'd shared something wonderful. Just based on the intensity of the past few days, the way he felt around Tony, the irresistible magnetic pull he felt every second of being around the man, meant that they'd _had_ something together. 

He was sure of it until the lightness of Tony's response. "Gotta be. You've lived a colourful life."

Steve suddenly remembered the drafted messages on his phone. The starts of something that never went anywhere, because he had never sent them. The past him had been too _afraid_ to break the status quo. Tony had told him they didn't talk much. They'd had a falling out and he had just left it at that, had he? Well, not anymore.

Steve wasn't sure if Tony had noticed, but they were _talking_ now. Afraid of breaking the spell, afraid to spook him somehow, Steve kept very still under the gentle ministration of Tony's hands. It was more difficult than it sounded. His insides were full of nervous jitters, skin feeling absurdly sensitive to each touch, and he found himself digging his fingers into the leather handles of the chair in order to keep still.

Oblivious to the strain Steve was under, Tony brushed the wet cloth across his neck, up to the sensitive point behind Steve's ear and when Steve sighed in pleasure, Tony smiled down at him. Steve found himself returning the smile in response to the unguarded look in Tony's eyes. With the soft leather of the chair encasing him at the back, and Tony's protective presence in front, Steve felt as if he was enclosed in a bubble of safety where nothing, not even the terrible memories from the past could touch him. It felt as natural as breathing to lift his hand and press it on top of Tony's, still cradling his neck.

The air between them changed. Something in Tony's face tensed, became at once aware and instantly hungry. His eyes sharpened as they moved quickly over Steve's face, landing once on his lips before jumping back to meet Steve's eyes with a penetrating stare. Steve met his gaze thinking, _yes, yes_.

He rose up off the chair, leaning slowly forward, everything inside him clamoring to feel more of Tony's touch, to find out the taste of his lips.

Tony knew exactly what was happening. He froze in place, anticipation like lightning striking through his expression. This close Steve could almost feel the touch of the bristles of Tony's mustache, and yet he couldn't feel a breath ghosting across his skin, as they both stopped breathing before the prospect of the kiss.

And just as he thought this might actually happen, as his eyes began to flutter closed, Tony sharply turned his face away.

Steve stopped within a fraction of an inch from accidentally kissing his cheek, flinched, and reared back. He took in the sudden down-turned mouth, the anxiety so easily visible on Tony's face now that he wasn't so close, and backpedaled, leaning as far back as he could in the leather chair, scooting away. "Sorry, I― I don't know what I was―"

"I can't," Tony said quickly. He yanked his hand away from Steve's neck, with Steve releasing his hold on it quickly, as if the touch now burned. "Maybe after you get your memories back, we'll― but― ... _I can't._ " His voice sounded awful, stumbling through words searching for ways to normalize what couldn't be explained. And still Steve knew he wasn't mistaken about the heat he'd seen on Tony's face just moments before. He knew what this was.

"I get it," Steve kept his voice soft even though he was dying inside. "You want _him_. Captain America."

Tony jerked to look over at Steve, started to shake his head―

"It's okay," Steve tried to show he was being earnest about it, blinking back the crushing weight of all his disappointed hopes. "I'd rather be him, too." _At least being Captain America won't be quite so lonely_ , he thought. _And nobody will miss me anyway._

"Right. Maybe we need to take a break," Tony said, reaching for the electrodes attached to the back of Steve's neck.

Steve wouldn't let him, edging his head away. "No, we need to continue."

Tony almost sputtered at the implacable tone. "You've got a killer migraine. Believe me, I know."

"So? The serum will take care of it," Steve insisted.

Tony huffed and looked ready to argue.

" _What_ , Tony? You want my memories back; well I want them, too!" Steve lay back in the chair, assuming the ready pose for the procedure, impatient. "Let's do this." He wasn't leaving this room without all of his memories. The weight of Tony's stare stayed on him for a long while. Steve knew he'd win this one. Tony wanted the other him back too much.

"You are the stubbornest person I know. _Fine_ ," Tony said roughly, then ordered: "Lie back, and try to relax." He went to the screen with the statistics, starting up the program again.

Steve tilted his head up to the ceiling. Already, he could feel the hum against his nerves, as his hippocampus protested in pain at the new input. 

Quickly, some wispy memory of snow rose up in his head, the whistle of a train filling him with unspeakable sadness. The memory fluttered just on the edge of his awareness, like a fencing partner that peppered his skin with glancing blows. Steve growled, and settled deeper in the chair, closing his eyes, letting out a deep steadying breath. Tony was saying something, probably more advice to relax, but it faded under the onslaught of memories, each one a buzzing temptation, dancing just out of reach.

He didn't want this slow dribble of pain.

Like flinging open a door, Steve embraced the trickle of memories until it became a river, an ocean ― and then the waves covered him completely.  


 

* * *

 

Steve remembered dying in the War. Steve remembered Bucky. His mother, Peggy; everyone he'd ever met. The twenty first century and his new team; his split with Tony. Everything came back in flashes of pain and joy, and even though he knew he wasn't actually there in the memories, more of an observer outside his own body, it still felt a little bit like he was relieving them, too. Sometimes, some expression or a tone of voice caught him completely by surprise, having never examined his own memories so closely.

Steve remembered _looking down on the Infinity Gauntlet, trepidation fluttering in his stomach at the thought of putting it on. It could kill him, to wield that much power. Again he wondered if he was strong enough. But Tony was injured, and Thanos was on their heels, with the other Avengers buying them just enough time, and Steve was their best shot. Tony had said so._

_Now, Tony's hand snaked out and caught his wrist. His human hand, the nanites of the Iron Man armour retreating for a second, leaving his arm uncovered to the elbow, just as his face was open, and currently raw with emotion. "Wait!"_

_Steve's stomach twisted with dread. If Tony didn't believe he could do it, then a little bit of Steve's own confidence withered in turn. Steve tried to make his voice come out strong, reassuring, but it still came as a a rough whisper, "Let me. You can trust me." He glanced back behind them, "Thanos is_ ― _"_

_Tony's grip on Steve's wrist tightened convulsively, as if he couldn't bear to let Steve go yet, making him turn back, to meet his gaze again. Steve turned his hand and gripped Tony's wrist in turn, contrary to any conscious decision that they had to hurry._

_Tony rushed to say, "It's not that. I do trust you, I do. I_ ― _" and he couldn't seem to make another word fall from his mouth. Tony stood frozen, eyes wide, staring at Steve as if begging him to read the meaning of what he wanted him to know._

_"Tony..." Steve whispered painfully._

_In a crumbling voice, Tony managed, "I need you to make it through this, okay?" His grip on Steve's wrist hurt. Everything he wasn't saying was in his eyes._

_Steve blinked slowly, knowing this might be his last minute on Earth. In his other hand was the possible salvation of the human race, of the entire universe, and it was selfish not to put the Gauntlet on, no matter how powerful, or how dangerous. They had nothing else. If it took his life as a sacrifice, so be it. But he could be selfish for a few seconds._

_Before he could rethink it, before he had time to wonder if it was a bad idea, Steve pulled Tony to him by that same wrist, and kissed him._

_It wasn't a well-planned kiss: lips mashed together, Tony too surprised to move for a moment. His mouth opened slightly under Steve's, and whether that was shock or something else he couldn't tell._

_And yet, with the warmth of Tony's lips against his own, Steve felt a little stronger, a little more certain of what he wanted. That's what it took, the Gauntlet: belief._

_Stepping away from Tony, tearing his gaze away from Tony's wide-eyed unblinking stare, Steve didn't hesitate another moment and put the Gauntlet on his hand._

_Everything went pure light._

In the present, Steve reared up on the bed, gasping for air, a weak noise escaping his mouth. Natasha was at his side, laying a careful arm on his shoulder, "Shhh," she was calming him. "Steve. You're safe."

Steve looked about him. He was in his bed, at the Avengers compound. Covers pooled at his waist, but he could tell he was dressed in simple grey cotton slacks and a t-shirt. A cool evening breeze blew inside the bedroom through an open window.

He pressed his knuckles to his eyes, memories swirling in his mind, lodging in his throat.

"You okay?" Natasha's soothing voice came from the side.

Steve took a shuddering, watery breath, and pulled his hands away from his face. "Nat?"

She nodded, a smile lighting up her face; so lovely, and familiar, her green eyes roaming his face for any sign of pain or discomfort. A dear friend's face. Curiosity lined her voice: "You remember me yet, Rogers?"

"I remember you," Steve answered with a wry smile. His head buzzed with the remnants of a terrible headache, now only an echo. He looked about the room, now utterly familiar; _his_. Someone had carried him here from the lab. He had a feeling it had been Tony, using his armor. "How long...?"

"You've been lazing about for two days," Natasha said, swallowing with a click in her throat which showed up her nonchalance for a lie it was. "Think you've got enough sleep yet?"

"I've slept enough." Steve rolled out of bed. His bare feet rested on the wooden floor, luxuriating in the comfort, recognizing how something so simple could make it easier to breathe. He swayed a little, and had to put a hand out to catch himself against the bed. Memories were still settling in his head, but he found with a bit of effort he could reason, he could push them aside to deal with at a regular pace, without feeling overwhelmed.

In her seat, Natasha frowned, but didn't say a word, just watching him steadily for any sign of real malaise. He appreciated the show of trust, and after a moment more gathering himself, Steve stood.

"Everyone is...?" he trailed off.

"Giving you some space," Natasha said, also rising. Her expression changed a little, grew conflicted, and ― if he wasn't mistaken ― as if she was trying to keep mischief off her face when she said, "Tony couldn't very well sleep here 24/7, so he's probably showering or in his lab."

"Oh," Steve said. He was struck by the memory of what should have been his last minute on Earth.

He had kissed Tony. In the final moments of the fight against Thanos, right before he had put the Gauntlet on his hand, for a brief moment, he had pressed his lips to Tony's and felt them open under his, pure emotion, no thought. A bold move, with everything still unsolved between them.

"You scared us, Steve," Natasha was saying, seriously. "It's still hard to believe we got you back, so be a little more careful with yourself."

But he _was_ back. He was whole, his mind his own again. And he knew exactly what he had to do next.

He remembered the desperate thought he'd had, in the chair in Tony's lab: _Captain America won't be as lonely._

Steve wanted to put his face in his hands again and laugh at the enormity of that self-deception. Most of his life was loneliness. The past couple of days, when he'd muddled through without the memories, lonely though he had felt at the time, were actually relatively easy: he'd had his friends around him. Since he woke up in that cornfield, his interactions with Tony were coloured with his awareness of the other's body, his attraction, something that Steve hadn't even realized was there until his clumsy attempt at stealing another kiss. Tony's obvious reciprocal attraction to him was so much easier to notice without their baggage. Now that he was Cap, and he didn't feel any different, didn't feel any more _heroic_ or righteous, or anything he might have expected to feel, he knew how much overlap there was between his two identities. If anything, Cap had been around all along, and the memories had brought back Steve.

Sure, Tony wanted Captain America; would probably always want him. But he didn't need Steve's memories to have that guy. He could have had him without, Steve had made that much clear.

It felt perfectly obvious that Tony had wanted _Steve_. All of him, with the entire weight of their shared memories, all of the pain, and all of the love. With the weight of that one brief kiss that had been a goodbye, but which reshaped itself into a desperate hope for more. 

And now Steve had all the context he needed to deal with it.  


 

* * *

 

Frontal assault was best. He found Tony in his workshop, pacing between the electronic screens with a manic energy of someone who'd barely caught a couple of hours of sleep in three days. He'd been at Steve's bedside, Steve had sensed it, in flashes of comfort and snatches of conversation he'd heard above him as he slept fitfully, thinking at the time he was dreaming them. Tony had been there beside him, and now, exhausted emotionally and physically, Tony had gone to the place that gave him strength: his workshop.

Steve smiled, pushing inside the room after entering his access code. The music wasn't on, and Tony's back was to him. He was hunched over one of the tables, lost in thought.

"Tony," Steve called softly so as not to startle, when the other man didn't notice him.

A flinch and Tony's back became ramrod straight, but he didn't turn around.

"It's me," Steve said, taking an uncertain step forward, unclear of his welcome, and still needing to see Tony's face, to see _him_. "I'm back."

Still, Tony wouldn't turn to look at him, frozen where he stood. Steve stopped his approach and for a moment they just stood there, a few feet separating them in the silence of the workshop, the futuristic screens swirling with information that Steve paid no mind, all his attention on the man before him. Tony lowered his head, from the glimpse Steve caught of it, he looked like he was biting his lip, breathing harshly.

"What do you..." Tony stumbled, voice wavering, and started again, trying for steady: "You remember?"

Steve crossed the distance to him and took his elbow, making him turn slightly. Even close as they stood, Tony's head was still bowed, facing off to the side, and he wouldn't look at Steve, as if he couldn't _bear_ to look at him.

"Still nothing after I put the Gauntlet on," Steve said, tugging on Tony's elbow, asking him to look, to see Steve. "But I think― everything before that." He tugged on Tony's elbow, again, mumbling, "C'mon," pleading with Tony, needing something more than this withdrawn silence.

Suddenly he found an arm flung around him, and he was held in an embrace, Tony's face pressed into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Steve breathed out shakily, gave a stunned smile to the empty corner of the workshop, and tenderly pulled Tony closer to himself by the waist. Instantly, at that reception, both of Tony's arms wound around Steve, holding on close.

"Glad you made it through," Tony said in a choked up voice that meant he was crying or near it. "Two days. Thought I might lose you again." His fingers twisted the material of Steve's t-shirt at his back.

"You won't," Steve promised blindly, heart soaring at the way Tony clutched on to him, as if suddenly dizzy. 

"You did it," Tony was saying breathlessly, and _God_ , he really was crying. "You saved the world." All of Steve's earlier reservations about touching him disappeared like smoke into thin air. He hugged Tony hard. 

"Pretty sure it was a team effort," Steve deflected with a laugh, so he could pretend he wasn't tearing up himself. "We did it. And we're both still here." He couldn't make up for the past two days of worry, for the three months he was gone, for the two years before that, but he could make this a better start for them. He put his nose against the side of Tony's head, nuzzling the messy dark hair there, breathing in. "I'm here," Steve murmured and couldn't help it, kissed his neck. Tony made a soft sound like pain as he yielded to it, his fingers flexing and grasping at Steve's back.

"That's all I wanted," Tony whispered desperately, turning to him, until his softly stubbled cheek slid across Steve's lips, until his mouth was positioned next to Steve's. 

This kiss was planned. Their lips met with intent, with hungry anticipation. Mouths slotting together at a slant, they clutched each other close as if to hold on and never let go, pressed breast-to-breast. Steve licked the salt off of Tony's lips, revelled in the hotness of his mouth, the eagerness with which Tony kissed him back. If they fell to the ground now, and made love, it would have been a perfect extension of the motive that drove them both into this kiss.

Steve wanted even more than that.

"I want to talk," he mumbled into Tony's mouth, startling him into opening his eyes until they looked at each other, still embracing and entirely too close. Steve could count the eyelashes surrounding Tony's gorgeous brown eyes. "I want to talk with you, and plan for the future with you, and do all the things we'd missed out on doing together."

"Because we were stupid," Tony said with tears standing in his eyes, looking at Steve like he could never get his fill. He was maybe smiling, a little.

Steve smiled back, a shy cant to his lips that blossomed when Tony placed a short, adoring kiss on his mouth, as if he couldn't help himself.

"And what do you want?" Steve whispered, wanting to hear _everything_.

Tony pressed another heated kiss to his lips. He said, "It's you. It's always you."

 

**Fin.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a [Tumblr](https://sheronwrites.tumblr.com/post/176035616419/any-road-mcu-stevetony-word-count-13657) post you can like or reblog.


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